The Real Thing

Finally working on some writing tonight, dunno if the recent creative drought was due to the distraction of all the NBA, NHL, and Twins games on HD (not to mention Cathy Wurzer in HD on Friday night, NOW I see why we need public television in high-definition); the distraction of a nice three-day Memorial Day weekend up north; the distraction of totally loving Nixonland; or just the distraction of sheer laziness. Also, the past few weeks I had been substituting a writer's aid for real writing work ... I had read that the late great Rick Johnson would write phrases and quotes that he liked on index cards and would shuffle through them when writing, looking for the right witty things to insert into his writing. I did a variation, writing words of advice, outlines, reminders, and summaries onto index cards and was probably halfway convinced that this was doing "real" writing. But like absorbing music, watching a movie, reading a book, reviewing your old work, etc. it was a help and not doing the real thing. It feels good to get back to the real thing.